Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Thursday July 21, 2011 @07:45AM
from the we'll-miss-you dept.

Early this morning Atlantis landed at KSC in Florida. I've been following the trip intently ever since my trip to Florida to see the launch of the very last Shuttle. This really is the end of an era. Thanks go out to the thousands of NASA employees who made this happen, many of whom have been laid off. A number of them emailed me directly showing me pictures and sharing stories. I wish you all the best. As for America, here's hoping that we return to space soon.

Actually, only 2 of those are certain. DreamChaser, MPCV and CTS-100 all depend on gov. money. Right now, only Blue Origin and SpaceX are planning on continue putting in money to fly humans regardless of what CONgress does. Though to be fair, I suspect that Boeing would continue since Bigelow is pushing them hard.

That's where it helps (but doesn't entirely solve the problem), that we're talking about private companies doing most of these projects. Of course, they still need lots of contracts from the government or they will have trouble with funding, but at least their direction and priorities aren't being yanked around every two years.

Take a project that is going well so far (as Dragon apparently is). If the US gov't doesn't throw enough money their way, perhaps another government or consortium of governments m

This assumes nothing. All of the vehicles mentioned are being built with private funds, not government appropriations. The only assumption here is that somehow congress isn't going to pass a law taxing these companies and otherwise making it illegal to actually get these private vehicles sent into space. Almost as bad as making it illegal would be to put up so much red tape and regulatory bureaucracy for private efforts that they can't afford to get anything up simply because of government compliance cos

Are there any regulations in particular you find odious and unnecessary? Keep in mind, a high-profile disaster or 3 could easily set back the privatization of space, too. Look at nuclear power; regulation has added to the cost, but what's really held it back was not the cost, but the political fallout from nuclear disasters. (Which is not entirely fair, since nuclear power in the US seems reasonably well regulated and has a good safety record, but suffers from the legacy of, for example, Chernobyl, which

Keep in mind, a high-profile disaster or 3 could easily set back the privatization of space, too.

Perhaps it was because it was in a different era, but the sinking of the Titanic didn't stop steamship travel across the Atlantic. It did introduce new concepts of passenger ship safety that still exist today, and it also introduced the concept of an engineering review committee for engineering disasters of various kinds, but it didn't kill the industry.

I don't think a high-profile disaster for private or even public spaceflight will be all that devastating. What is needed is more variety and more options

The US manned spaceflight program comes to an ignominious end at the same time the Texas school board votes on whether to teach evolution in science class. And people wonder why we've lost our leadership in science and manufacturing.

You did miss the irony. The US manned spaceflight program continues. We are simply hitching rides with Russia the same way that we did after Columbia. While are no longer SOLELY in first in science and manufacturing, we still remain amongst the top. Our problem is that ppl skew the results, just like you did.

There's no repression of religious expression at schools. Indeed the very ACLU you pan has on numerous occasions defended the rights of students to express their religious beliefs in school: Here's [gainesville.com] one, here's [gazette.com] another. A simple Google search reveals dozens of similar stories. What the ACLU objects to, along with most religious freedom advocates, is the coercive expression of religion in schools. A teacher has no right to lead students in a prayer that some present may not believe in. He or she is representative of the authority of the school and in turn the government, they should not give the impression of coercing students into prayer. Similarly, events like graduations and pep rallies are for everyone, turning them into religious events is neither fair nor constitutional. As a side note, that same teacher would be fine leading a prayer in an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) meeting, as participation in such a thing implies a certain level of acceptance.

Long story short, religious expression in schools is fine. Students can wear all the religious jewelry they want, wear the goofy t-shirts they want, talk about God in the hallways and the lunchroom, even have clubs that focus on one religion or another. The caveat to that is that it has to be fair: If Bob can wear a cross, I can wear a pentacle; if Sue can can start a Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter, Sarah can start a Torah study group. It also should not be a part of official school events like classes, assembles, or graduations. At that point it is infringing on the rights of others.

When I said there was no repression of religious expression in schools, I suppose I should have said that the ACLU and similar religious freedom organization don't advocate such repression. It does exist, largely becasue school systems overreact to legitimate attempts to minimize religious coercion in schools. The ACLU fights such repression as much as it fights the coercion. The OPs implication was that the ACLU is attempting to repress religious expression in schools. It's not true.

We see evolution in bacteria and plants and animals all the time, and yet, idiots like you claim that this is theory. The original poster declared that US manned spaceflight was over, though only the shuttle is over. No wonder we have issues in the USA. Idiots deny what is plain as the nose on their face.

The fact that the Shuttle was still flying in 2011 isn't just a testament to its longevity. It's a sad reminder that, at least for now, human spaceflight is at the mercy of the schizophrenia that is the American political process.

NASA has consistently brought together some of the finest minds in the world to do what the preceding finest minds thought was impossible. Then, because this is America, we take a bunch of mouth-breathers who probably got Cs and Ds in basic high school science courses and make them the bosses and the gatekeepers, the people who decide that it's more important to systematize the abuse of human rights at airports and buy the jokers at the Pentagon their newest murder toy than it is to push the frontiers of knowledge and ingenuity.

I'm putting my hope for the future of space exploration in private hands. Not because I fetishize the free market, or because I think government is evil, but because human spaceflight is way too important to be put in the hands of the American electorate, which is probably the stupidest and most poorly-informed decision-making body since the Athenian ekklesia.

I have a 1976 ford gran torino, I can drive it on the interstate for long distances, its not safe at current interstate speeds, its shit on gas but fuck has it got a large trunk... problem is we never put that much into it

I'm putting my hope for the future of space exploration in private hands. Not because I fetishize the free market, or because I think government is evil, but because human spaceflight is way too important to be put in the hands of the American electorate, which is probably the stupidest and most poorly-informed decision-making body since the Athenian ekklesia.

Private spaceflight if it gets beyond the rich kid stunt level into the practical orbital level will owe much to programs like NASA that never would have found it's genesis in the private sector.
But to be fair, I wouldn't put all of the blame on the American electorate. I'd say a significant amount rests with NASA's continued inability to sell itself to anyone but the Trekkies. They had piles of good material to energise the public, but they never made any use of it.

True. True. True. But as someone who vaguely remembers the concern over Sputnik, I can't stop thinking that this is the first time America can't put a person into space since I was barely 10 and John F. Kennedy was starting his fourth full month in office. I too hope private industry doesn't kill off too many astronauts coming in under a profitable budget but I also wonder whether it's just another symptom of the advancing neo-Dark Ages where some guy in the 25th century will write poetry about the "giant

The fact that the Shuttle was still flying in 2011 isn't just a testament to its longevity. It's a sad reminder that, at least for now, human spaceflight is at the mercy of the schizophrenia that is the American political process.

American human space flight...

The International Space Station would *not* exist in any similar way if it were left to the Russians, the ESA, JAXA, etc. Humans are up there right now thanks to American demand. Sure, humans from other countries' space programs have gone there, but how many cosmonauts do you think there would be if it weren't for the desire to compete with the USA? Human spaceflight would be massively different (and almost nonexistent) if it weren't for American involvement. So yes, human spaceflight is by and large at

The SLS [wikipedia.org] is a perfect example of that. It's sometimes called the "Senate Launch System" because of all the design constraints written into the funding legislation. For instance, they require that it use a certain kind of fuel so that a company in somebody's district will be sure to get some pork out of the deal, that sort of thing.

But in the real world, in the long term, we need to seriously focus on keeping the earth sustainable and survivable. Because it's all we have, now and forever.

When I read comments like that I am reminded of many similar quotes by limited thinkers. Staying with the tech theme I'll go with "640K ought to be enough for anybody"...Right!

By now, as a species, I feel we need to realize that never and forever are not terms that apply to limitations of the human mind. What we can think, what we can imagine can become real. Thought, word, and deed lead to creation. The drag on human progress is not our lack of capability, but of commitment. In some cases it takes seeing beyond our lifetime to acheive the goal; that is lacking in today's leaders and populus and a drag on progress.

Unless we wipe ourselves out (war, natural disaster, pestulence) I know that humans will expand beyond this planet one day. Colony ships? Sustaining enclaves on other planets within our system? However the manner, we will do so because at the core of our being is the need to go past the next hill, the next mountain, beyond the horizon, outside our atmosphere, and more. Someone will choose to take that next step forward. This planet is now too small for our minds, but it is small minds that will chain us here for a long time.

There are realistic limitations. You can't just dismiss anyone who is skeptical of any dream as a limited thinker. Yes, people say things like "They will never be a computer in every home" and are wrong. You can call someone like that a limited thinker. But there is also the guy who says in 1955 "We'll never have flying cars in every garage. Flying vehicles are impractical and inefficient. The technology isn't there to make them practical or usable for average people, and likely never will be. It's a waste

we cant even get past our own moon let alone another star, yes maybe one day star trek will happen but we have another 300 years so dont go holding your breath

and how is a small asteroid mining operation going to work, again we find it impressive to attach a storage shed to a LEO shed for 20 something billion dollars, not that impressive is it? so you stick all this shit on what amounts to mostly frozen water and gas and somehow get profit? nevermind the fact that we have

Do you really believe that in the billions of stars out there that none of them have a planet that has a oxygenated atmosphere and standing water?

Sure, they're out there. We just can't and won't be able to get to them.

One small asteroid (metallic or otherwise) would be worth a massive fortune

No ore would make the expense even close to worth it, even if you could find a meteor that was solid ore. Even a solid gold meteor would be worthless (even if you found a way to get the thing to earth without it costing more than the gold was worth, it would just collapse the gold market).

Don't forget energy. Instead of burning fossil fuels and polluting our atmosphere for energy, there's a basically unlimited amount of it coming from the sun. It'll be a lot easier to harness it (and a lot less environmentally destructive) in large quantities from space than underneath our atmosphere.

Finally, having capabilities in space could prove invaluable for protecting ourselves from threats, such as killer asteroids or climate change (regardless of the cause). For instance, there's ideas for a "net

Democratic governments only work well when the populace is educated and informed. That's why there's plenty of small European countries, like Switzerland, that are doing just fine, while other democratic countries like the USA and Mexico are doing terribly and are full of corruption.

There also seems to be a correlation between population size and internal problems in democracies. When you're a small country (1-10 million), there just isn't as much to fight about as when you have over 300 million people.

Geez kids, get a grip! We haven't 'left space'. We have active missions out there right now (Vesta? ring a bell?), and we'll continue to send people to the ISS on Russian ships. Within 10 years we'll likely have manned capability again, but humans in space return far less than the robotic missions.We need better robotics to take the next step, which is picking a resource (like a large mostly-metal asteroid), bringing it into orbit and exploiting the shit out of it.

Lots of people here spent the last 5 years bitching about how the shuttle was old and needed to be retired, now it's happened and everybody's making gloomy predictions about how we'll never leave the atmosphere again.

Lots of people here spent the last 5 years bitching about how the shuttle was old and needed to be retired, now it's happened and everybody's making gloomy predictions about how we'll never leave the atmosphere again.

Those weren't the same groups of people. The Shuttle did need to be retired, and thank goodness it was. Constellation needed to be killed too, and it was. Having manned spaceflight being built by a central design bureau that doesn't care about costs is where the problem is right now.

The really sad thing is that the people who wanted to see the Shuttle program continue should have fought for that a couple of years ago, at least spoken up when the Michoud facility which built the booster tanks was being sh

Atlantis flew a magnificent mission, capping a great career. She, and her sisters, have been great ships and deserve to retire with honour.

Yeah, they were expensive. Yeah, people think robots are cooler. Yeah, they couldn't go to the moon or Mars. And yeah, in hindsight hanging a somewhat fragile spaceship on the side of a booster probably wasn't the best idea.

But Atlantis and her sisters' record of achievement is magnificent, and will probably never be matched. They launched space probes, they conducted research into materials, life sciences, earth sciences, astronomy, and countless other fields. They serviced satellites and space stations, and brought tonnes of equipment back to earth for study and reflight. They provided a convenient platform for experiments and payloads that would otherwise have had to construct their own complete satellites. They did all this 133 times successfully, with only two losses, and in the space business you'd take that success rate any day of the week.

While I'm not much of a fan for seeing the Shuttle continue, it is a magnificent spacecraft and I do look forward to seeing Altantis and her sisters in museums in the near future. They did a whole bunch of amazing things, and prove some spaceflight ideas that will be invaluable for future spacecraft design.

I just hope that the record of achievement will be matched in the future and surpassed in terms of tonnage delivered to orbit, items brought back to the Earth, and satellites repaired while in orbit. At

Look, it WAS a great achievement. But like most things in the USA, for the last 30-40 years we never move on to something better. I believe with the space shuttle still flying we would never get a new program moving. The shuttle a great technical achievement, but an inherently flawed design for efficiency and frankly BORING at low earth orbit capability. Furthermore, at 0.5 BILLION per launch, it was just a waste of money repeating the same thing (essentially) again and again and again. We could launch two vehicles -- one for humans and one for the cargo for far less than this single shuttle bus.

Now lets see if we can get more practical MODERN vehicles moving forward now that this 1960/1970 vehicle is finally put out to pasture where it belonged 15 years ago.

I'm European, and the USA spaceflight is one of those things that I used to look up to in my young years. I used to build little paper space-shuttles. And without a replacement there this dream is dead.

There are plenty of "replacement" vehicles to the Shuttle. Nearly a dozen have been designed by NASA, some very similar to the Shuttle and some more like the Apollo capsule. There are also more than a dozen American spacecraft designs currently under development in various stages, including a capsule called the "Dragon" which has just been announced that it will travel to the ISS in November of this year. There are even some European spacecraft designs that I'm particularly impressed with, some which are

I just heard the sad news on the radio, the United States manned space program was found dead on it's runway in Cape Canaveral this morning. Foul play is suspected. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss it -- even if they didn't enjoy it's work, there's no denying it's contributions to the advancement the distribution of federal pork. Truly an American icon.

This is a sad day because I see no realistic plans to replace the shuttle's capability of putting a human in space, even if it's only LEO. It looks like pretty much everything to replace it has been canceled.

N.A.S.A, another victim of the Iraq war. Such a pity to witness it's demise.

Well I don't know what reality you are living in, but here in the real world we have this little bird [spacex.com] that was just tested on orbit last Spring. It's scheduled for another couple of test flights later this year. I hear that the development of its emergency abort system (something the shuttle didn't have) is being developed expediantly. Once that item is checked off, we should be able to put people back into orbit in no time.

While having immense respect for those who worked on the Shuttle program, and certainly honouring those who lost their lives in its operations, I feel that this is the end of a huge diversion. It turned out that the Shuttle was never as good an idea as it was originally made out to be. It certainly never lived up to its name. I feel, but I don't know, that this could have been recognised earlier and the U-turn being made now could have been made twenty years ago. Unfortunately, the "Concorde effect" cut in

As we move forward, we stand on the shoulders of these astronauts and the thousands of people who supported them on the ground - as well as those who cheered their triumphs and mourned their tragedies.

This final shuttle flight marks the end of an era, but today, we recommit ourselves to continuing human spaceflight and taking the necessary-and difficult-steps to ensure America's leadership in human spaceflight for years to come.

While there are a couple of factual errors with this interview (I'll forgive somebody in their 70's who otherwise was actively involved in the development efforts of a great many spacecraft programs) this interview by Jerry Pournelle covers many of the problems that happened with the Shuttle development:

Althoguh I am british, I grew up in the 80's, and the spaceshuttle is one of those defining items of that era. I was saddended when chanllenger exploded, and even more upset when Colmbia exploded. I deep down expected it to finish its working life and end up in a Museum. Also to see some "anti-west" groups in the middle east "celebrate" the explosion really upset me.

Jeremy Clarkson wrote a book once, called "You've got soul". IT describes "machines" that are more than just a hunk of metal/plastic/etc, but have an affect on human psyche that incites adoration, and the impression of "soul". He described Concorde as one such machine. I would say the Shuttle is also one of such machine.

Congratulations to all involved, and remmber those who lost their lives.

...walking (booted) out the door. In 5 years NASA couldn't launch a shuttle even if they took Atlantis, mothballed it and all the facilities because no one will know how to do it anymore.

When they started working on Ares they had to send engineers out to look at the Saturn 5 rocket in Houston to try to rediscover its technology because all of the institutional knowledge was gone. And even after that, they killed it.

Imagine what it must be like to be an engineer at NASA...”work on this, no, work on that. Wait, forget that and do this. Never mind, do this instead”. You've all been there in IT probably.

If there ever was a time to establish clear, long term goals and technology focus, now is it. But they will drift aimlessly, buffeted by the whims of the Administration and Congress.

Some things have longer horizons than our 2/4/6-year election cycles. Like our financial institutions, our leaders and focused way too much on the short term.

The Pres & the Congress should set goals, NASA should submit an honest budget per project, and Congress should approve them or not as a whole. No more of this micromanagement crap -- "We'll give you 7 billion this year, but you've got to use solid rocket boosters made in the congressional district from Utah. Next term, we're going to cut your bud

The knowledge isn't all gone just yet. My father worked on the guidance and control systems and simulations for all the Saturns except the first test vehicle, the Apollo-Saturn Telescope Mount, the Space Shuttle Main Engines, and Spacelab (as well as helping others in his group with things like Hubble and Gravity Probe B).

However, your point about the schizophrenic management is correct; since then he's worked on X-33, X-34, Ares I, and Ares V guidance/control systems/simulations, with effectively nothing to show for it. Now he's waiting to see if the White House will ever move on the next heavy-lift vehicle (that Congress already appropriated money for). He's coming up on 50 years working for NASA (45 years in civil service and almost 5 as a part-time contractor).

NASA's biggest challenge has always been funding and the year-to-year budget process. There really should be some way to budget more than one year at a time; that just doesn't work very well for long-term projects.

However, your point about the schizophrenic management is correct; since then he's worked on X-33, X-34, Ares I, and Ares V guidance/control systems/simulations, with effectively nothing to show for it.

If anything, that only validates how extremely poorly run NASA is. The fact they want to create a guidance system for any specific craft is stupid, expensive, and extremely wasteful, especially knowing full well how schizophrenic major projects like that are.

Had they actually wanted to do what's right rather than just burn USD, they would have many projects completely distinct from projects like the X-33, X-34, Ares I, and Ares V, and so on. Its not like guidance is actually distinct. They all require guida

They've been using the same guidance/control system simulation framework since X-33. However, you can't just have a re-usable guidance system for vastly different vehicles. X-33 was a lifting-body (which is an inherently unstable platform), X-34 was a delta-wing (similar to the Shuttle), and Ares I/V were stacked/staged rockets (similar to Saturn, Delta, etc.). They also had vastly different propulsion systems; while the Ares engines were based on existing traditional rocket motors, the X-33 was a linear aerospike, which required completely different control systems.

It isn't like they started from scratch each time (they didn't); it is just that a lot of customization had to be done for each vehicle and propulsion system. If they get the go-ahead to work on the heavy-lift vehicle, they'll start with work done for Ares and evolve it for the new project.

You wouldn't expect the same system to work on a Cesna and a B-2; why would you expect the same system to work on vehicles that have even less in common?

Exactly. Plus, the parts these systems are built from change over time. Just look at how fast semiconductors are obsoleted, or new and better ones come onto the market. You wouldn't want to use a 30-year-old guidance/control system on a brand-new spacecraft. Some or even much of the overall design and software may be the same or similar, but it'll probably be running on updated hardware and take advantage of other newer techniques.

It's like the Linux kernel. It's 20 years old now, but that doesn't mean a modern Linux system is running 20-year-old software. The people involved have changed and improved so many things in it that it's scarcely the same, however many of the fundamentals are still the same and some of the code hasn't changed because it hasn't needed to. They didn't just quit when they hit 2.0 or whatever; they kept making it better and better.

Does your father have any Saturn guidance software source code AT ALL, or any knowledge of where it might be?We have been desperately searching for the Saturn LVDC guidance software for years now, even to the extreme of obtaining core planes from a LVDC and trying to read them out.If your father has any prints at all, or any knowledge of where the software might be, we DESPERATELY need to hear from him!

If it is missing why not simply print out a nice form letter asking about it and send it to the retired NASA guys? I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to get a list of their locations since after all you have to send their pension checks somewhere.

While I don't know about the LVDC I know that my retired NASA engineer neighbor has some of the late Apollo stuff like one of the books for programming the capsule computer (Sorry I can't think of the technical term for it ATM, I have a major cold) as well as some of the

While NASA might not be able to launch a shuttle, there certainly are several people who can, and are American as well. Just because NASA development efforts are falling apart and it seems like the bureaucracy at NASA is too big for its own good, that doesn't mean the knowledge is being lost either.

Instead, the real development efforts are now happening with private efforts. Anybody with half a brain and wants to design rockets that really fly, which will carry real cargo and real passengers into orbit are now no longer working for NASA or even many of the major contractors for NASA. Instead, they are working at places like SpaceX, Orbital, Blue Origin, Xcor, or Bigelow Aerospace. They are making things that either have or will shortly go into space.

The real proof that something has changed is how Boeing is treating spacecraft development. They have essentially ignored any direction from NASA in terms of designs and even they went and built their own spacecraft (the CST-100) that will fit on top of one of their own launchers (Delta IV). The technology to go into space is alive and well, with a whole group of people who know how to do it and are doing it routinely. It just isn't going through NASA centers for direction, planning, or funding any more.

I think that is a good thing, although the question begs to be asked, why keep NASA around anymore? If the vehicles being designed by NASA engineers or through NASA directorates keep getting canceled and there is no clear focus in terms of what to do next, I certainly wouldn't want to stick around if I was an employee there. The exciting stuff isn't happening at NASA any more, and they aren't even getting into space and doing stuff. Even the science directorates are being cut back.... for what? A big rocket that will never be used for a mission that is irrelevant because the destination that is its only purpose will no longer exist by the time it is built? Yeah, that is real inspiration to me.

People keep complaining about the bureaucracy at NASA, but I don't think that's the main problem over there. NASA has been very successful at launching many unmanned missions in the last 10-20 years. Look at the Mars rovers; those have been a resounding success (except for that one that crashed due to US/metric confusion).

The problem with NASA is that it's tied too tightly to the government, and the government is elected and changes every 2-4 years. Worse, the government (and American business and even s

How many manned spaceflight rocket designs have been proposed since the Saturn V was slated for retirement? Starting with the "Big G" Gemini II capsule all of the way to the Orion/Constellation program and nearly 20 vehicles in between, I'd say that is a consistent pattern of failure after failure. It certainly hasn't been a lack of trying, but a consistent lack of follow-through to get something built has been a huge problem. Only the Space Shuttle seemed to be the only program to be spared the wrath of

although the question begs to be asked, why keep NASA around anymore? If the vehicles being designed by NASA engineers or through NASA directorates keep getting canceled and there is no clear focus in terms of what to do next, I certainly wouldn't want to stick around if I was an employee there.

That's simple: science. Commercial interests may be fine for building rockets and launching them, but who's going to pay for a mission to explore Mercury? A private company isn't going to do that, because there's

What you just describe is exactly the situation that we have had.
With NASA pushing private space to take this on, we will move the knowledge into MULTIPLE companies that will keep moving forward. In fact, what is now going to happen is that SpaceX has massively one-uped ALL OF THE COMPANIES AND NATIONS in the world. What is going to happen is that UAL will be forced to create a new rocket, or lose possible launches. Even now, they have started work on a rocket idea for taking on the Ares V, now SLS as we

Imagine what it must be like to be an engineer at NASA...âwork on this, no, work on that. Wait, forget that and do this. Never mind, do this insteadâ. You've all been there in IT probably.

Yep, that sounds exactly like my employment as a software engineer at two large semiconductor companies. The difference, however, is that I either didn't work on anything terribly important, or that didn't have viable competitors (the one thing that was a useful-to-society item, fiber-to-the-home aka GPON, had s

I have seen this comment so many times lately... Anyone who was there in 1975 when the last Apollo-Saturn launched could have said the same thing. From 1975 to 1981, between Apollo and the Shuttle, we went into a period where the US had no operational manned space capability and I don't recall near the wailing then about how the US had given up on manned space flight. Now we are probably looking at a similar time period until the US again regains the ability to provide its own manned launch capability.

Only because the American government didn't want to set the precedence. The first satellites, the first people in space, and other "firsts" could all have been American, but the Eisenhower administration deliberately killed American efforts at going into space before Russia/the Soviet Union because doing so would have potentially changed the recognition of various international law philosophies of flying over the territory of another country.

I'd like to know what accounts you were reading. Seriously. I've read many of those same "insider accounts" as well as what the staff and policy makers in the Eisenhower administration were saying at the time.

Wernher von Braun had a rocket that had been completely built and ready to do flight testing before Sputnik was launched. Instead, the government essentially cancelled his project in favor of another that was being built by the U.S. Navy (von Braun was working for the army ordinance directorate). S

We need to fix our budget starting by reducing spending on the biggest parts of the budget first:1. medicaid & medicare, 23%- get rid of the inefficiencies of a for-profit insurance and medical system. (I admit, this requires further study on my part),2. social security, 20% - adjust the eligibility age to properly reflect changing demographics. Make it so it automatically adjusts in the future. It's supposed to be a safety net to avoid poverty in old age, quit selling it as part of your retirement planning.3. military spending, 20% - try being a good neighbor instead of a raging drunken dickhead. Maybe promote Democracy, transparency and accountability instead of propping up the tin-horn dictator de jure just because he hates the guys we hate and can keep the oil flowing. Like NASA, spend the money on what we actually need, don't use this budget as a means to dispense pork.4. discretionary spending, 19% - once we get those first three bigger portions straightened out, then we can start looking at the piddling little stuff. With NASA getting like 0.6% of the budget, there's a lot of other things that should be looked at first.

Anybody that doesn't tackle those items first is just pandering and re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic. Fix it before it corrects itself.

no, I am not available to run for office. I will however consider calls for me to be made dictator.

>2. social security, 20%
WRONG. Social Security is Debt neutral. Or should be. The "Fiscal Conservatives" keep robbing it to hide their irresponsible spending habits. It certainly does need a tweak or two, but it is not part of the federal debt. (its just owed a lot of money by Reagan, Bush (41), Clinton, Bush(43), and Obama. Oh where is Al Gore and his lockbox when we need him?

Part of being debt neutral is not paying out more than you have coming in. Hence, adjusting the eligibility age to properly reflect demographic changes.
And yes, SS, originally, in theory, was supposed to be a separate item from the budget as a whole. But as you've pointed out, in reality, everybody's had their hand in that cookie jar to temporarily cover up their budget problems in other areas.

According to the CBO, the ACA (Obamacare) goes most of the way toward solving the medicare problem. If you revise Part-D to allow negotiating lower prices for prescription drugs, that would put Medicare in the black for... well basically forever. It you remove the "Social Security Cap" that would do the same for SS. (Currently, you only pay FICA deductions -- "payroll" taxes -- on your first $100k or so of income. So the hedge-fund manager who makes $20m pays the same FICA as a guy who makes $100k.) Elimina

Actually shutting down three "wars", altering the national defense strategy for the modern world, and expanding the space/science strategy is the sensible thing to do. We spent/spend more money on three wars in two months then the entire NASA budget for a year. The RIO for our war effort, dead soldiers, pissed off people, and continued unbalance in countries we are "helping". However, since it is political hacks and soulless CEOs that are making decisions these days, sensible only applies to their ego, n

You seem to think that all the shuttle did was go back and forth to LEO. The shuttle was the scene for a great deal of study in microgravity; from biological reactions to materials science. None of which could have been done with unmanned probes and rovers.

You post is also worthless. NASA has been pushing for multiple private human rated launchers, but CONgress is trying to block things. ANd carping about Climate boosted by that little amount is just plain petty.